Lost on the Left Coast - Latest Comments

Re: Santa Cruz Personal Rapid Transit

Boomer — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:21:17 -0000

It's a real thing; not real active in Santa Cruz. The idea is that point-to-point transit for individuals or small groups is actually more efficient than tooling an gigantic bus around for 3 people.

If you _really_ want to feel lost on the Left Coast, ask a political old-timer to think back 15 years or so when there was a short-lived but real push to replace bus routes to UCSC with -- yes, sky buckets, much like the ones at the boardwalk. A form of PRT. According to a guy who was in admin with the SC Metro, it actually costed out. It was Gary Patton's baby.

Re: The ongoing saga of Stephen Myers

dude — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:43:37 -0000

The thing is, both the posters are correct. Myers was a "cool" teacher and being one of *his* kids was considered cool. But, there were rumors. I chose not to believe them -- I was one of *his* kids and he never touched me. But then, he never really had the opportunity, so that is no data point one way or the other.

Re: The ongoing saga of Stephen Myers

Calif and Swiss Skier — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 23:08:19 -0000

I disagree completely with the poster below. I was in school with Myers 74-76 and it was painfully obivious then. His dimming the lights and giving (and having other kids) give massages was beyond inappropriate. When I called this out to my parents, he gave my mother some line of crap about how I desperately wanted to be one of the 'cool kids' and was just lashing out out of spite of rejection (which was odd, as I had plenty of friends and was among the higher GPA's in the school). Many many years later I heard from a friend of mine that he molested him during these years. This guy should have been eradicated then, and he should be eradicated now

Re: The ongoing saga of Stephen Myers

Bdix333 — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:13:28 -0000

Flawed historical reporting. Yes, Myers' techniques were considered progressive in 1972. He was actually attracting the "cool" kids. A kids social standing improved by being invited to a Steve Myers event. After he left Mtn. View I don't know what kind of kid he attracted. His Poetry of Rock and Human Development classes filled very quickly. A kid had a better chance of getting in if you signed up for his weekend bike trips. I saw NO DEVIANT BEHAVIOR...ever. I knew him very well from 1972 to 1974.

Re: Are California’s rape laws in need of overhaul?

Jessica M. Pasko — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:53:28 -0000

And yes, you are correct about that Bob. I think the issues the decision raises though are quite interesting.

Re: Are California’s rape laws in need of overhaul?

Jessica M. Pasko — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:52:59 -0000

My blogging platform was being wonky. I've fixed the links.

Re: Are California’s rape laws in need of overhaul?

Bob Johnson — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:41:46 -0000

She was asleep and she had been drinking.

Re: Are California’s rape laws in need of overhaul?

Bob Johnson — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:40:53 -0000

Link is busted above. http://www.courts.ca.gov/opini...

The reasoning used in the opinion to make a distinction about whether he was impersonating a boyfriend or husband is pretty weak and would have a good chance of being reversed at the next level or in another case. In this particular case, it will not end up being argued to a conclusion as the guy can and most probably will be re-convicted on the fact she was asleep. The opinion does recommend a change in the way the statute is worded.

Re: Are California’s rape laws in need of overhaul?

RealityCheck SantaCruz — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:49:39 -0000

I don't know what is more strange, that it's not defined as rape, or that you know your boyfriend is leaving, and have no idea that a different person got in your bed to have sex with you.

Re: Are California’s rape laws in need of overhaul?

Brian Kraus — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:42:39 -0000

That is horrible.

Re: Earthquake!

Boomer — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 19:29:44 -0000

You're one of us now :-)

Re: Parole suitability hearings

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Re: Oakland – the last bastion of American radicalism?

Boomer — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 02:13:41 -0000

Oakland's a hell of a town, and always has been. Parts are dangerous, parts are beautiful, parts are both. A lot of the thinkers and dreamers and activists who got priced out of San Francisco never left Oakland -- I never lived there but visited a lot, and got involved in a coop used bookstore that set up in an derelict nightclub on telegraph avenue -- the dance floor was still there. There were illegal live-in art studios all down the second floor over the building, and nobody cared. A lot of good things take root in urban decay, and Oakland was always vital in some ways.

It was also the home of unionism, back when the East Bay was industrial from Hayward up to Richmond, and that has never changed. Wife of a friend was shop steward in a union shop in Oakland; they were involved in women's rights, worker's rights, equal rights, and on and on. They would come down to visit and she'd always express dismay at how slack and self-satisfied the liberal culture was down here.

I don't have a bit of surprise that Occupy hit it big in Oakland. The East Bay was where the Bay Area activism of legend was born, in the mid-60s at Sather Gate on the UC campus. The East Bay is where it still lives.

Re: Twenty-five years of “The Lost Boys”

Boomer — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 23:05:12 -0000

Santa Cruz got more than its share of serial killers, but it was a Norcal-wide phenom in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. I grew up in Vallejo, and one of the Zodiac's first two kills was a friend of my sister.

Used to be somebody would find a body up in the mountains every year or two, after the rain washed out a shallow grave somebody'd dug in the woods. They weren't necessarily killed up there; it was just a good place to dump a body; a mere 20-minute speed run from downtown San Jose. After the hills got more developed in the '90s, the body-dumpers went elsewhere.

Ask the old-timers on the paper, though, about the guy in San Jose who chopped up his girlfriend, drove to the end of the municipal pier after midnight and dumped the pieces into the bay. The guy didn't know how tides worked, unfortunately. That was back in the '90s.

There was another murder around that time, I think over drugs. Four drifters squatting on the north coast killed one of their number in a dispute, chopped him up, and dropped one or two parts at each beach from the city limits northward. I guess they figured that the pieces wouldn't be noticed, or put together. They were, and they were.

Re: Twenty-five years of “The Lost Boys”

Jan — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 20:59:05 -0000

There was some sort of "vampire killing" in the flats down by the boardwalk, bunch of drugged up kids would poke holes in each other and suck the blood. One died. This was oh...25 years ago.

Re: Video: Activists confront DA over occupation prosecution

Sylvia Caras — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 12:38:00 -0000

Thank you for posting this here. Bob Lee ignores county and city and taxpayer cost, states that the 75 River St charges are “ not costing my office any money at all” and that he sent 73 hours of video back to the city of Santa Cruz police department for identification. So 73 hours of tape review and 44 counts and maybe three dozen court dates have cost the DA's office nothing, no money at all. And the costs to the courts and the city aren't a factor, because there are no costs to the DA.

Re: Video: Activists confront DA over occupation prosecution

John Colby — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:37:39 -0000

Jessica, you're not getting at the story here. DA Bob Lee and his assistant Rebekah Young are abusing their positions of authority, their official power, to persecute a select few, violating their civil rights under the Constitution and U.S. law. Please see the link below:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/in...

Re: The Blind Project at CDCR’s California Medical Facility

Jim Jones — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:54:17 -0000

Do they still have the annual art show? Back when I was a kid, CMF had an art therapy program and the inmate would paint and draw; they could sell their work at the art sale, if they so chose. My arty aunt dragged me to a couple.

Since a fair number of CMF inmates have serious issues, you can bet that some of those pantings were... interesting.

Re: The divine (reproductive) secrets of the banana slug

Cheap — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:06:57 -0000

So banana slugs are"divine" but what happens in the womb is abortable? Get Real.

Re: odd things in the police blotter

AttilaPo8 — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:44:21 -0000

So much for amusement.

Re: Dreaming the wind

Boomer — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 21:16:31 -0000

Google "Superman The Aquarian" sometimes. He used to be a local. It's the name on his birth certificate, and I know he has gone by it for legal purposes on at least some occasions. People born to hippies in the '60s and '70s sometimes ended up with some pretty strange name baggage. I once met a ten-year-old child-of-hippies named Pandora Galaxy back in the early eighties. At the age of ten, she was petitioning the court to have her name changed. Then there was a kid named Ramses, after a condom that failed under stress, but that's Marin for you.

Re: “I did it all for love”

Crystallinesheen — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:15:13 -0000

Jessica, keep up with your blog! You have interesting things to say. It is interesting to see what your recently transplanted eyes see here in the community. I'm a 12 year transplant myself here in this crazy town so I can relate. So you were neighbors with the nutty jail escapee? Welcome to Santa Cruz! You know you are a resident when you know the local jailbirds.

Re: Hunt for the missing Buddha

Carolyn — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:51:20 -0000

Buddha would say to let go of material possessions as they are not the key to enlightenment. (And, of course, now you'll need to get up early and watch the sunrise for yourself. Good meditation moment.)

Re: odd things in the police blotter

Tales from the Coast — Sat, 19 May 2012 21:16:36 -0000

Police blotter haiku time:

Their marriage, to him,
meant less than what the pawnshop
offered for her ring.

Re: Tomato Wars

Boomer — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:08:48 -0000

Good luck in the tomato wars! I don't expect a good year near the coast unless the weather heats up. Any of your competitors who live up around Scotts Valley or in the Santa Cruz "sun belt" way will have the advantage -- warmer there, less fog.

To the guy who wondered why fresh produce would be a "California thing -- " that's because it's been promoted that way all over the nation for well over 100 years, ever since they made the first reefer cars and began shipping produce east, in crates emblazoned with colorful labels showing a pastoral paradise bursting with good fruits and vegetables. My wife grew up on the east coast and, even as a child, it was a Christmas treat to buy a full crate of oranges, with a picture of luscious oranges on the side and the Sunkist logo -- every orange individually wrapped in tissue paper.